You know it’ll hurt you to see it. You know it won’t change anything. But you want to know. You want to who she is.

You quickly skim through the pictures. You see a picture of a birthday girl. It’s labeled “me + my sister in law”. You keep flipping through. You come to another girl. He’s standing beside her, his arm wrapped around her. They’re both looking into the camera, smiling really big. They look happy. You look down at the caption. It’s labeled “me + her name”. You see another picture of him and her. And another. And then you know. That’s her. She’s really quite pretty. And deep down you knew from before that that’s what she’d be like.

So now what do you do?

Are you supposed to be happy for them? Or hate them for being happy? Hate that it’s not you? Are you supposed to cry scream kick or yell?

Or do you hope that one day seeing this picture again won’t hurt you?

Sometimes we forget how much comfort we can derive from a simple touch.

An elderly Italian woman with chin length pale blonde hair and piercing blue eyes sat in front of a desk that curved around her. Her right arm slid slowly across the table from her right side to her left, and then slowly back. “Push push push push push,” she cheered herself on. After several repetitions, she stopped and looked at the young girl sitting beside her. The girl smiled a huge smile and told her, “one more.” “Push push push push push,” the elderly woman went. When she finished, she once again turned to the girl beside her. “Finito?” The girl nodded. “Yes! You did a great job! Let’s take a rest.”

The girl reaches up to touch the old woman’s hair. “You have really pretty hair.” The grandmother looks at the girl’s long black hair and tells her she has really beautiful healthy hair. The grandmother asks, “How long have you been working here?” The girl tells her, “For about four months now.” The grandmother nods.

The grandmother begins to tell the young girl her story. She tells the story of how it happened, how it affected her right side, and how she ended up here. She talks about the impact on her family. Her granddaughter was around the same age as the girl.

Then she looks up slowly, her eyes with a distant look in them. “Sometimes I ask my mom and dad to take me too.” The young girl puts her hand on the grandmother’s arm. Then her blue eyes look straight into the young girl’s and in that moment, they share a common understanding.

A touch that communicated something words cannot.
Maybe it provided a little bit of support and strength for her to hold on a little bit longer.

You can’t assume two people that walk right by each other are strangers.

It’s the beginning of summer and a spring breeze still lingers in the air. She’s walking toward the subway station with her mp3 plugged in. From a distance she sees a figure that she instinctively recognizes. Maybe it’s the way he walks, or maybe his stature, or maybe just simply his presence. She can feel her heart skipping a beat, and her breathing picks up. He’s walking in her direction.

Memories begin to play in her head like a motion picture. She remembers the first time they met, and how he introduced himself to her as her new lab partner for the next three weeks. She remembers the first time he sent a spark running up and down her spine. She remembers how she got to know his smile, the sound of his laugh and how she came to like the way he called her name. And then she remembers how good he was at making her smile.

She remembers the first time she realized that it was love. And that she had never before loved anyone the way she loved him. And maybe this love was something she’d keep with her forever.

These sweet memories come to her first, but they weren’t the last. She remembers that day vividly. That day he showed her the ring. That day he told her about her. She remembers the initial shock, the smile she fought to plaster onto her face, and then breaking down the moment she turned her back to walk away. She remembers her world stopping for the next month. She remembers heart break.

Then she remembers how they slowly slip apart. A choice she didn’t make. His eyes no longer meet hers, and his friendly greetings disappear. He distances himself away from her, and this time she feels frustrated and disappointed in him. She remembers that the last goodbye wasn’t vocalized.

As the film of their past memories is about to come to a close, she is only about a metre away from him. She looks up. And just for a moment, their eyes meet in acknowledgement of each other. And then the moment passes, and they return to being strangers. They walk by each other and continue on.

It’s how they started. And how they end up. As strangers.
But it’s not a perfect cycle. Because they’re not the same strangers as before.

When he was looking at her like that…what did he see?
Did they see her differently? Did they see the same girl?
Did they see the same girl that she sees when she looks in the mirror?
It’s Tuesday.

She purposefully gets up ten minutes early so she’ll have more time to get ready. Tuesdays are the days she has class with him. She straightens her hair, and passes on the sweats. She puts on a bit of concealer, eyeliner and mascara to brighten up her eyes.

She’s already sitting in class beside her friend, fourth row from the front. He finally comes in right before lecture starts. He quickly scans the room. He sees her, but as quickly as he looks at her, he looks away. He chooses a seat two rows in front of her. He could have sat beside her, there was an empty seat to her right.

It wasn’t like she studied him, but she knew his presence very well. She knew his figure and the way his body was shaped. She was familiar with his features, and she knew the look in his eyes. She could spot him from a mile away. She could probably even recognize his shadow.

They met at school and they used to be friends. He would always greet her with a smile. He was always willing to help, sometimes even without being asked. But then one day something changed. Now, she wasn’t sure what they were anymore. He’ll walk by without glancing in her direction. She knows that he sees her, but at the same time, it’s as if he doesn’t. The time she went to ask him for help, he just stared straight ahead and quickly brushed her off. After that, she saved her questions for other people.

It’s break time. He gets up from his seat and walks right by her to a group of people sitting behind her. She didn’t even know he knew them, she’s never seen them converse before.

He saw her when he came in. He saw her when he walked right by her.
When he’s looking at her like that…what does he see?

It’s Wednesday.

She’s on her way home from class. She slept in until the last minute today, so her hair’s a mess, she’s in her sweats and she has no make up on. Sweats are more comfortable anyway. She gets to the station as her bus is just leaving. She decides to wait for the next bus instead of walking back in the cold.

People come up the stairs from the subway, including a group of four friends. She notices that there are two males and two females, and then she goes back to looking for the next bus. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees one of the males frequently glancing in her direction. She assumes that perhaps he’s looking at the map she’s standing in front of, or maybe someone beside her. She goes back to looking for the bus.

After a couple of minutes, he separates from his friends and walks towards the ticket booth. She could sense him looking in her direction again, but this time he was fixated. She glances over and for just a second, their eyes meet. She quickly glances away, not quite sure what she’s supposed to do.

She realizes she doesn’t know what this stranger looks like, but only knows that he’s wearing black. She only remembers the eyes that met hers behind the black framed glasses.

This stranger was just standing across from her and he couldn’t stop looking at her.
When he’s looking at her like that…what does he see?